Jack suggested that extremely low float levels often result in a stock which finds itself easily manipulated. As a result, he set the lowest float parameter to avoid such circumstances. On the other end of the spectrum we have your supertanker analogy. Too high a float level results in a stock which fails to run up in price even with substantial volume. See Average Daily Volume for Lucent Technologies for a modern day example. Also, depending on what point in time Jack posted, he altered the specifics of the culling process based on the market conditions of the day. Clearly a different trading environment existed in the late 1990's compared to the first few years of the new century (2000 - 2001). I recommend reviewing the Big Post I - X (attached in the original Journal) for an overview of the process. Most of the important docs located on the MSN Documents Section have been uploaded and attached under the heading "Recommended Reading" in the Original Journal in an effort to create a back-up repository of the documents. You should find accessing the docs via the Original Journal simpler than attempting to do so via MSN and their occasional server errors. Hope that helps. - Spydertrader
Hi martys, It came up in my Gallas2 MSN screener tonight. 1. Have a float less than 60,000,000 CHECK! 37.3 million 2. Have a float greater than 5,000,000 CHECK! 3. Have a 65-day average volume above 200,000 shares. CHECK! 750,373 4. Have positive EPS. CHECK! MRQ= 35.52% TTM 52.51 % Plus it is traded on the Nasdaq, not the AMEX. Has a score of 0 and a rank of 4.79 from the Spydertrader chartscript. Will have to see how this pony runs... G87
It did not show up in the stocktables.com scanning... Probably different EPS ranking system?? Good trading!
You make a good point, but on the other hand, in my brief time using this method, I don't recall any stock that passed the RS/EPS screen having a float>60MM. And Spyder's comments on why Jack set a lower limit to prevent getting into stocks subject to manipulation cleared up that point for me. Doug